We first met Plao Thanakrit at the Thailand coffee festival in 2017 where his coffee was the highlight of the event for us. We exchanged information and shortly after we travelled to Chiang Mai to meet his family and started our journey to the famous coffee growing region, the Omkoi district.
Plao’s roots are located in Tha Song Yang area and many of his family are still living there today. This remote area is famous for producing award winning coffee beans, very much like his own. From Chiang Mai city, we travelled south west towards Burma. From Omkoi town its another 3 hours off road drive to get to the mountain villages where the coffee is growing freely among other native crops.
Chang Plao and Bubba's Coffee have established a strong bond through our mutual love of coffee and we have been back several times to check on operations and work together on experimental processes. Our resources are shared direct with the community in Tha Song Yang area, and we are proud to see the people are rewarded for the difficult job of harvesting and transporting the coffee out of this remote area.
Plao’s coffee has been rewarded multiple times by the Specialty Coffee Authority of Thailand:
- 2016 1st place by SCATH
- 2017 2nd place by SCATH
- 2018 3rd place by SCATH